The Brute, the Brawler, and the Ballerina: Fighting Styles
and Character Development in Firefly and Serenity

(Editor's Note: Jason Couch is a
lawyer living in Maryland who has been practicing a handful of styles
on and off since about 1995, primarily different forms of kickboxing,
grappling, and stickfighting. He has contributed a number of
previous articles to EJMAS.)

The series Firefly was broadcast on American television in 2002 and was
cancelled after eleven episodes. Thanks to writer/director Joss
Whedon and his clamoring fans, the theatrical film Serenity, based on
the Firefly series, was released in 2005. Both the series and the
film are now available and selling briskly on DVD. This
genre-bending "space western" is a blend of drama, action, and comedy
set in the Firefly/Serenity ’verse, a solar system far from Earth and
500 years into the future. The major conflicts include the
totalitarian Alliance government’s attempts to suppress the
Independents’ coalition in a civil war of the worlds, shown through the
post-war actions of the rebel captain of the Serenity spaceship,
Malcolm ("Mal") Reynolds, and the hunt for psychic River Tam, a
fugitive from Alliance control. The franchise offers a depth of
character, dialogue, and plot that allows fans to enjoy, critique,
discuss, and debate the different elements nearly endlessly while
crossing their fingers hoping for a sequel.

The Firefly/Serenity franchise has captured a large following partly
because of its well-developed characters. A subtle aspect of the
character development is the way each character’s style of hand-to-hand
fighting reflects his or her broader character traits, and in some
instances reflects growth experienced by the character. While
there are nine crew characters in both the series and film, the three
hero characters that spend enough time fighting to be able to analyze
are Jayne, Mal, and River, respectively referred to here as the Brute,
the Brawler, and the Ballerina.

Spoiler Alert: Significant plot
elements of the Serenity film are discussed, as well as smaller
mentions of the Firefly television series episodes. If you have
not watched Serenity, but plan to, please consider yourself warned.

The Alliance

The clearest signs of organized martial arts in the ‘verse are found in
characters that presumably learned their art through Alliance
association. The discipline needed to study an organized martial
art reflects the societal dichotomy between the rigid Alliance and the
wild and woolly frontier. For example, two characters in the
Firefly series loosely associated with the Alliance show glimpses of
trained martial behavior. Shepherd Book (played by Ron Glass), a wandering
preacher whose mysterious past implies Alliance service, performs an
efficient weapon disarm, including an open hand strike to the throat of
an Alliance spy in the Firefly pilot episode. The smooth execution of
the technique implied that it was a practiced disarm, rather than a
situational improvisation. Similarly, Jubal Early (Richard Brooks), an
Alliance bounty hunter, executes recognizable techniques with a crisp
and fluid style in the “Objects in Space” episode. However, the
clearest evidence of formal martial arts training is displayed by the
fighting style of the Alliance Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who
appears only in Serenity.

The Operative, the Alliance agent pursuing fugitive River Tam, displays
an economy of movement from his walk to his fighting style. When
fighting, he relies on precision rather than force by striking pressure
points with his spearhand techniques. From his stiff upper body
posture, sword, Zen-like calm, and seppuku speech, the Operative evokes
the impression of a neo-samurai. Oddly, while the Operative’s
fighting style is efficient, it does not especially feel like Japanese
martial arts. Even so, the Operative’s fight choreography does
mirror the experiences of the character. Serenity opens with the
Operative executing an Alliance doctor who let River Tam escape a
controlled facility. The Operative first paralyzes the doctor
with a nerve strike to the back, then, as professional as a lumberjack
marking out a tree landing, he places his sword for the doctor to fall
upon. As the film progresses, the Operative’s calm eventually
slips as his efforts at capturing River Tam are repeatedly frustrated
by Malcolm Reynolds. In his first encounter with Mal, the
Operative is the bemused professional assassin, hitting at will with
his targeted strikes. However, by the final fight scene at the
end of the movie, the Operative’s fight style becomes less precise, his
physical techniques displaying his character’s broader frustration by
relying more on large movements, such as slamming Mal around, than on
his earlier pinpoint nerve strikes.

The Independents

The Brute

The best articulated character of the Firefly/Serenity franchise has to
be Jayne Cobb (played by Adam
Baldwin). He is, to put it bluntly, a lewd, crude beast, both
physically and socially adapted to the Hobbesian nature of the frontier
worlds of the Firefly ‘verse. Jayne’s professional role is
generally either thug or sniper: when not providing a visual reminder
that Mal has physical back-up, or threatening to torture someone with a
large knife for information, Jayne is awaiting the order to pick off
targets from a distance. While he shows professional competence,
such as when he brings out his favorite gun (named Vera) to save ship
and crew in the “Our Mrs. Reynolds” episode, the very activities in
which he is competent reinforces his role as hired muscle.
Similarly, Jayne’s off-duty interests are limited to the baser
pursuits. Jayne’s main activities appear to be lifting weights
and working out, followed by eating, sleeping, and masturbation.

Jayne is also, in one sense, the most direct character portrayed.
Jayne is interested only in things that profit Jayne, moreover, Jayne
will be the first to say so. One example is in the “Heart of
Gold” episode, where the crew is being called upon, as a favor to a
friend, to assist a group of beleaguered women on a frontier moon:

Jayne: Don’t
much see the benefit in gettin’ involved in strangers’ troubles without
an up-front price negotiated.

Booke: These people need assistance. The
benefit wouldn’t necessarily be for you.

Jayne: That’s what I’m sayin’.

Zoe: No one’s gonna force you
to go, Jayne. As has been stated, this job is strictly
speculative.

Jayne: Good. Don’t know these folks,
don’t much care to.

Mal: They’re whores.

Jayne: I’m in.

Jayne’s fighting style mirrors his direct and brutish nature. In
Serenity’s bar fight, an anonymous patron takes a swing at Jayne, who,
annoyed, blocks and then executes a visceral hammerfist to the crown of
the head, all without missing a beat. The instinctual choice of
such an inefficient technique emphasizes that Jayne’s fighting style
owes more to brute force than precision training, since a targeted blow
would have required less force while delivering the same result
(1). In “The Train Job” episode, Jayne again eschews formal
technique, opting instead to explode out of the saloon swinging a large
metal stool at those unfortunate enough to be in his path.
Direct, effective, and very much in character.

Jayne is not a completely one-dimensional character, however, for it is
his sly humor (and his love for his momma) that endears him to the
viewer. When describing how he would kill a man “in a fair
fight…or if I thought he was going to start a fair fight,” his glance
and subtle grin muster a likable charm that tempers his otherwise
offensive demeanor. That whimsical side is mirrored in Jayne’s
fight in Serenity’s payroll robbery. As a guard bursts into
action, Jayne clotheslines the guard as he runs past, then, as the
guard rotates in midair from the force of the clothesline, Jayne grabs
him by the ankles and bashes his head into the floor, rendering him
hors de combat. The movements are executed through sheer power,
from the initial clothesline to lifting the guard by his ankles, but
Jayne’s humor slips through because of the patent absurdity of the
gravity-defying technique.

Criminal laws, shipboard rules, and even societal norms do not apply to
Jayne. He has disdain for those who would fight fairly, he is a
career criminal, and he constantly betrays those with whom he is
associated. It is therefore ironic that Jayne is the first to cry
“foul” when someone fails to follow through on something that would
benefit Jayne. Going back to the bar fight in “The Train Job,” it
is therefore Jayne who calls out the crew’s opponents for pulling a gun
in a fistfight: “Them ain’t kosherized rules.” Were the situation
reversed, it is doubtful that Jayne would be quite as concerned with
the rules.

It is telling that when Jayne is finally felled in a fair fight, it is
by River Tam after being grabbed from behind by Jayne. River
grabs Jayne’s groin, which stops Jayne long enough for River to catch
him with a back elbow, followed up with a serving tray to the body then
face. Although there are any number of techniques that could have
been used for that scene, it is fitting that Jayne’s defeat came
through an attack to his thought center - his genitals.

The Brawler

Malcolm Reynolds (“Mal”) is the uncompromising captain of the spaceship
Serenity and, like the ship itself, serves as one of the centers around
which other characters revolve in both the series and film.
Played by Nathan Fillion,
Mal is a Han Solo-ish combination of cowboy and sea captain,
figuratively firing from the hip while expecting, or rather demanding,
others to either follow his lead or leave. He follows a code,
simple though it may be: when he makes a bargain, he follows through
and expects others to do the same. That may sound basic, but in
the Firefly ‘verse, others seem to think a bargain is only as good as
the ability to physically enforce its terms. It is only Mal’s
experience, with a dash of deviousness and a little help from his
friends, that allows him to semi-successfully conduct his business.

Mal’s fighting style is just as forthright as his business
philosophy. When Mal fights, it is with liberal use of the
roundhouse punch. Normally this is the familiar John Wayne big
right hand, but for variety sometimes a big left will also be
thrown. Success with this technique, as with Mal’s business
ventures, is often mixed at best and the punch is useful mainly when he
uses it in a less forthright manner, i.e., when he sucker punches
someone.

When Mal faces experienced foes, such as his first physical battle with
the Operative, he fails abysmally with the roundhouse punch. In
fact, he only escapes the encounter due to help from friend Inara and
that dash of deviousness referred to earlier. Mal is no tyro,
though, as he does display fighting knowledge, but it is likely gained
from experience rather than formal training. For example, his
limited success in his first fight with the Operative came when he used
a broader arsenal of his skills, such as knees, elbows, grappling, and
improvised uses of the environment. These techniques are clearly
secondary considerations to Mal, who admits that he likes punching
people even when he knows an open hand blow may be more sensible.
In the infirmary after a barroom brawl in “The Train Job,” Mal
acknowledges that “They tell ya, never hit a man with a closed fist,
but it is, on occasion, hi-larious.” Unfortunately, his favorite
fistic technique fares no better in his second encounter with the
Operative.

Mal, aware that an Alliance fleet is lying in wait to ambush him,
mutters the words “They’re not going to see this coming” before setting
his plan in motion to avoid the trap leading to the finale in
Serenity. Similar words could be used to describe his eventual
defeat of the Operative in their second encounter. A trained
fighter, the Operative easily evades Mal’s telegraphed roundhouse
punches and spends time slamming Mal around into floors, railings, and
every other available surface. Reaching the turning point in the
combat, the Operative strikes Mal with a spearhand in the lower
back. In the ‘verse, this is a strike to a nerve cluster that
causes a standing paralysis (well, to all but Mal, who had it moved due
to an old war injury). Mal is apparently familiar with this
strike and its intended consequence, because he pretends to be
paralyzed until the Operative attacks, thinking him helpless. Mal
then dodges, catches the Operative with an elbow to the throat, and
then dislocates the Operative’s arms with a reverse nelson that
apparently has the effect of a “surfboard” in wrestling, tearing or
dislocating the shoulders by forcing the arms back. Mal’s
deception in this fight mirrors the deception he used to overcome the
Alliance fleet. That capacity for deception, possible in this
instance only because of his experience with nerve strikes, is often a
factor in the resolution of Mal’s broader adventures in the ‘verse.

The Ballerina

Although the Operative’s fighting gave a glimpse of how his character
changed as Serenity progressed, it is River Tam that best shows the
development of her character through the fight choreography.
River is played by Summer
Glau, a former professional dancer who underwent training first
with Hong Kong stuntwoman Ming
Liu, then three months with stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and Hiro Koda in
preparation for filming Serenity. All three had formerly worked on
Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

River’s backstory, known to Firefly viewers but revisited and slightly
repackaged for Serenity, is that an Alliance-associated entity held
River against her will and performed brain experiments on her.
The doctor in charge of the facility recognized that River possessed an
extraordinary grace, which River’s brother attributed to her love of
dancing. One result of the experimentation was programming River
to be a “living weapon…conditioned for combat.” Another is that
River experiences ongoing mental problems due to the
experimentation. River’s first fight scene begins with an event
in a bar triggering River’s mental conditioning. The stakes in
the fight begin low since River is not attacked, but she instead
attacks the bar patrons without provocation. The almost
luminescent lighting of the scene underscores the dissociation River is
experiencing after she has been triggered. If the viewer suspends
disbelief long enough to accept that roundhouse kicks to the heads of
multiple opponents is a reasonable choice of technique, then the scene
is shot as an athletic, acrobatic, and effective display of River’s
conditioning. As the scene proceeds, River’s techniques get more
and more combative, going from the long range roundhouse kicks to close
range elbows, throat strikes, and knife and gun work. Roundhouse
kicks aside, the scene shows how deeply River’s mind has been fractured
when she switches from a seemingly normal, if confused, teenage girl
into a demolition machine (2).

River’s later fight scene takes place after she has undergone an
experience that has seemingly cured her mental issues. Unlike the
first, this is a fight she enters voluntarily. The stakes are
also higher this time around, because she is battling an onslaught of
hyper-aggressive Reavers, wild men who will, to paraphrase one
crewmember, rape you to death, eat your flesh, then sew your skin to
their clothing…and if you’re very, very lucky, it will be in that
order. The Reavers themselves battle in their own characteristic
manner. Their goal is to penetrate and rend, and their primary
weapons are harpoons of varying sizes at distance and their teeth and
hands when in close. By contrast, River visits a whirling,
Wushu-inspired ballet of slicing destruction upon the Reavers.
Whereas in her first fight River was athletic and combative, here the
grace of her movements shows that she has combined the programmed
Alliance fight training with her background as a dancer, culminating in
her own style that is both lethal and lovely. The integration of
her background and the fight programming reflects the healing that took
place within River’s own mind, and allowed her to voluntarily call upon
her skills instead of the having the programming control her.

Whedon, in creating Firefly and Serenity, clearly
paid attention to the details when he crafted his characters, plots,
and dialogue. It would appear that some attention was also paid
to the fight choreography in support of the broader character
development in both Firefly and Serenity. From Jayne’s direct
pounding of skulls to Mal’s maybe-it-will-all-work-out-this-time
roundhouse punch, characters’ traits were reflected in their fight
styles. Likewise, the Operative’s growing frustration and River’s
mental healing were also reflected in the differences between their
earlier and later fight scenes. What could have been obligatory
action scenes instead contributed to the richness of the characters in
both the series and the film. Shiny.

(1) Although this technique may be listed as atemi-waza in some
older jujutsu or judo curricula (see, e.g., the TENTO at http://www.ejmas.com/jcs/2004jcs/jcsart_Koizumi_0704.htm),
it is not common today and is highly inefficient. More importantly, the
context simply does not imply that the movement was a practiced
technique of Jayne’s.

(2) The roundhouse kicks in River’s first fight are distracting
because of the inevitable comparison with one of Whedon’s other series,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy also features a slip of a
teenaged woman kicking Bad Guys in the head. On the other hand,
the actress here does most of her own fight work, unlike in Buffy,
which helps deliver a superior product all around. According to
one of the stunt coordinators, virtually all of the bar fight scene was
performed by Summer Glau herself.

Filmography

Firefly was released on DVD to the US market by 20th Century Fox in
December 2003.
Serenity was released on DVD to the US market by Universal Studios Home
Entertainment in December 2005.